Structure

During the last 30 years, the Artistic Department has expanded from 50 musicians to the present 88. It now includes an Artistic Director/ Principal Conductor, an Associate Conductor, a Research Fellow, a Research Development Officer (Musical Instrument), a Concertmaster and Assistant Conductor, a Deputy Concertmaster and Principal, Section Leader and Principals (2), Principals (12), Assistant Principals (9) and musicians (59). The Orchestra has four sections: bowed-strings, plucked-strings, wind and percussion, which incorporate traditional and modernized Chinese instruments as well as suitable western instruments.

Chew Hee-chiat   Resident Conductor

Chew Hee-chiat is currently Resdient Conductor of the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra. He was able to play many types of Chinese musical instruments when he was in secondary school, and later received lessons in composition from Saw Boon Kiat of Malaysia and renowned composer Qian Zhaoxi of China. He received higher education in the United States and graduated from the Southeast Missouri State University with a double bachelor's degree in cello performance and computer science in 1994. He went on to read a postgraduate course at the University of South Carolina under Dr Donald Portnoy, and was awarded a Master of Music degree in orchestral conducting in 1996.

Chew has been dedicated to conducting and orchestral development for Chinese orchestras since 1996. He was Music Director of the Professional Cultural Centre Orchestra (PCCO) of Malaysia before joining the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra in June 2002. Since then he has been playing an active role in the numerous concerts of the Orchestra, not only assisting in conducting but also working on music arrangement and instrumentation. In March 2004, he guest conducted the Singapore Chinese Orchestra in a highly successful concert, A Nanyang Musical Voyage II. It was followed by the Opening Rally of the Hong Kong Dizi and Xiao Festival in 2005, in which more than 500 players performed his work, A Celebration of Dizi, under his baton. The event achieved a new Guinness Book of Records as having the largest number of people playing the dizi at the same time. In May 2008, the concert Rising Stars of HKCO, featuring Chew and the Orchestra's young artists, showed the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra In a refreshingly new light.

As conductor of the Hong Kong Junior Chinese Orchestra since 2003, Chew has been actively participating in the education aspect of the Orchestra¡¦s development roadmap. He also hosts many bilingual workshops to introduce Chinese music and Chinese instruments to audiences in Hong Kong and other parts of the world. In 2009, when the HKCO partnered with YouTube to become the YouTube Symphony, Chew was highly commended for his arrangement of Tan Dun's Internet Symphony - Eroica for Chinese orchestra.

Conducting aside, Chew is an active composer as well. His works have characteristic features that demonstrate his Southeast Asian cultural heritage. They include Orchestra Suite No.1 and Orchestra Suite No.2, which won him the second runner-up prize in the International Competition for Chinese Orchestral Compositions 2000 organized by the HKCO; The Third, which won him the Outstanding Composition Award in the Chinese Music Competition 2002 organized by the Council for Cultural Affairs in Taiwan; Fantasy Dance (a Hong Kong premiere); and Tradition? for bangdi and small orchestra (a Singapore premiere).

Yuen Shi-chun was born into a family of architects in Hong Kong, having studied civil engineering himself. He joined the newly formed Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra in 1974 and was appointed Liuqin Principal. He has been the Research and Development Officer (Musical Instrument) ever since the position was created in 2003.

Yuen is currently also serving as an executive member of the China Nationalities Orchestra Society, Vice President of the China Society for the Management and Research on Scientific & Technological Achievements - Cultural Chapter, and a consultant to many manufacturers of musical instruments in China and other parts of the world. In 1993, he was made a member of the Expert Group on the Improvement of Musical Instruments under the Ministry of Culture, and sat on the Adjudication Committee for Technology Advancement Award. He was presented the Award for Arts Achievement (Music) by the Hong Kong Arts Development Council in 2003.

For the past three decades, Yuen has performed in more than 2,500 concerts of the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra. In his spare time, he has been conducting a self-financed project dedicated to the design, research and making of Chinese instruments. Instruments revived or improved under his hand number more than twenty, such as the Tang-style ruanxian, the quxiang (crooked-neck) pipa, the wuxian (five-string) pipa, the Qing-style pipa and the Qinqin. The modified models of liuqin with double resonators and ruanxian that he modified and improved won a Class Two Technology Advancement Award (1992 and 1996), and his ruanxian series won a National Class Three Technology Advancement Award (1998) from the Ministry of Culture of China. The Eco-huqin Series that he first developed in 2005 has since turned out new models of the gaohu, erhu, zhonghu, gehu and double-bass gehu that have been adopted by the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra. Through reviving ancient instruments and improving modern instruments, Yuen has opened up new horizons in academic research and in the performing arts, therefore casting influence on the international music scene and academic sectors.

Yim Hok-man is a renowned percussionist with more than forty years of performing experience. Accomplished in percussion instruments of both east and west, Yim has won popular and critical acclaim in various parts of the world.

Yim began learning to drum when he was ten. At 14, he was admitted to the Music School affiliated to the Central Philharmonic Orchestra of China to study western percussion music for five years. After graduating with distinction, he joined the Central Philharmonic Orchestra as a percussionist and stayed with it for 20 years. During that period, he also learned Peking Opera percussion music as well as Zhoushan Gong and Drum Music under virtuosi in the two performing art forms.

During the 1970s, he was on tour with the China Arts Troupe to Japan and the US, where his performance of Zhoushan Gong and Drum Music was warmly received.  In the 1980s, he diligently studied the art of Xian Drum Music and Chaozhou Gongs and Drums.  In July 1989, he was soloist in the concert series The Art of Chinese Percussion in Hong Kong. 

During the 1990s, Yim took part in many music and arts festivals, including the Hong Kong Arts Festival, the Macau International Arts Festival, the International Music Festival, the 1998 World Expo at Lisbon, the Taipei International Percussion Festival, the National Drum Competition for the 24 Solar Terms held in Malaysia, the Cannes Film Festival in France.  Yim has given many touring performances as a member of a delegation or orchestra, etc.  The places he has visited include the US, Canada, Germany, France, Austria, Holland, Portugal, New Zealand, Japan, Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, Macau and many cities in China. 

His solo albums Master of Chinese Percussion - Yim Hok-man (1) and Master of Chinese Percussion - Yim Hok-man (2) are considered quintessential representation of Yim's knowledge of percussion.  Released for international distribution in 1998 and 1999, they were highly acclaimed in the music and acoustics milieux, and are selling very well in every part of the world.

Yim is currently a member of the China Nationalities Orchestra Society, an honorary member of the Percussion Society under the auspices of the Chinese Musicians' Association, an honorary executive committee member of the Professional Percussionists Council of the China Nationalities Orchestra Society and the Shaanxi Percussion Society of China. He joined the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra in 1984, and is currently Associate Director of the HKCO Orchestral Academy,  Concertmaster* cum Percussion Principal. He is also a part-time lecturer in percussion at the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts and the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Yim was named "Artist of the Year 1999" by the Hong Kong Artists' Guild.

Gaohu

Hsin Hsiao-ling Principal#		Wong lok-ting Assistant Principal*		Chu Yung		Cheng Yuting		Ng Kwok-kwong
Zhou Yi		Ngai Kwun-wa

Erhu

Hsin Hsiao-hung Principal#		Zhao Lei Principal*		Wong Yung		To Shek-chor		Sze Poon-chong
Xu Hui		Tong Koon-yan		Lu Yunxia		Zhang Chongxue		Siu Sau-han
So Shun-yin

Zhonghu

Liu Yang Principal#		Hui Yin Assistant Principal		Mao Qinghua		Wong Chi-wah		Chang Hung-chung
Pang Yui-sing		Siu Sau-lan		Han Jingna

Gehu

Tung Hiu-lo Principal		Lo Chun-wo Assistant Principal		An Yue		He Wei		Tng Kin-seng
Cheung King-mui		Wan Man-leung		Ngai Hon-yip

Bass Gehu

Chan Kung-ki Principal		Lee Pak-wai		Vonghemrat Pichan		Qi Hongwei		Li Wei

Born into a musical family, Wong Chi Ching entered the China Broadcast Chinese Orchestra in 1976 and the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra in 1987. Currently, she is the Section Leader of Plucked-strings and Pipa Principal of the Orchestra. Since 1995, she has been learning Peking Opera under Bao Youdie.

Wong is a versatile pipa artiste with a rich repertoire that comprises works by different composers, in different styles and at different times. Noted for her pure tone colour and artistic appeal, she is praised by critics as “musical, also artistically and technically proficient? Wong is a much sought-after soloist, having collaborated with the Philippines Symphony Orchestra, Taipei Municipal Chinese Orchestra, Taiwan Symphony Orchestra, Hiroshima Symphony Orchestra, Russian Philharmonic Orchestra, Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, Hong Kong Sinfonietta and the Central Folk Orchestra of China.

Wong is also a keen supporter of modern music. In October 1995, at the ISCM World Music Days Festival held in Hong Kong, Wong performed two new works by local composer, Law Wing-fai, Shake n’Roll and Ink Spirit for pipa and strings quartet with great success. Then in April 1996, she participated in an innovative performance that integrated music with dance entitled Zi Lian Kuang. In her performance of King Chu Doffs His Armour with the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra, she added a cadenza where she sang with her own accompaniment on the pipa.

In January 1997, Wong performed at the Composers Seminar organized by the Taipei Municipal Chinese Orchestra in Taiwan. In March of the same year, she performed a zhongruan concerto Remembrance of Yunnan with the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra. In June 1997, she performed a symphonic piece When Mountains Roar for Chinese-Western orchestra with the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields. After receiving critical acclaim in the 2000 Hong Kong Arts Festival programme “Pipa Images? she gave a highly successful performance with the Hong Kong Sinfonietta at Saint-Riquier Festival in France next year.

Sun Yongzhi entered the Xian Conservatory of Music in 1977 where he was trained by Yuan Xiuhe and dizi maestro Zhao Songting.   After graduating with distinction in 1982, he stayed on at the Conservatory to teach.  He was appointed Dizi Principal of Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra in 1997, and is currently also the Section Leader (Wind).  Sun also teaches dizi at The Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts.

Apart from teaching, Sun is a recording artiste, having recorded for many productions in film and television and studio work.  He was the lead player in the film soundtrack music Red Firecracker, Green Firecracker and The True Hearted by Zhao Jiping, the famous composer in film music.  He has also won in many dizi competitions in China.

Sun has been on many overseas tours as a member of the delegations of China Youth Arts Troupe, the Shaanxi Cultural Exchange Group, the Xian Musicians Ensemble and the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra.  The countries he has visited include the United States, France, Germany, Holland, Spain, Switzerland, the Middle East and Japan.

Percussion

Wang Dong Assistant Principal		Ronald Chin Assistant Principal		Gao Shan		Chan San		Liao Yi-ping